This morning's class was great! An entrepreneur came to talk to us about his experience. He is English and lives in Paris. He went to INSEAD, probably somewhere in the 90s. Young, tanned and really cute, but let's move on.

Now, it is important that classes be interesting in P5. Academic motivation levels are at their lowest and everybody realizes that they have only a few weeks to call up friends for drinks and parties, and follish weekend outings.

Heard in this particularly interesting but probably illegal Saturday class and faithfully reported

"This is selling out" - cute alumnus
"well, not really. Yes you are giving up some equity"- student
"and how else do you define selling out?" - tanned alumnus

"we found it so difficult to do business in France, an otherwise extraordinary country to be in. The repressive nature of the government, the power of the French state which diminish any initiative of private and free enterprise and the scale of the black economy distorts the market so much that it makes it difficult to hire, to make proper investment decisions and to conduct everyday businesses. There is such a strong incentive for people to dodge their incredibly high taxes that they just do. People get a lot of cash over the counter as an undeclared complement to their salary. How can I then hire these people on a standard package, fully declared?


The yound, tanned and really cute guy then went on talking about setting up a business a France. Now, please take this with salt. It is true that the country does not offer the most welcoming environment for entrepreneurs. It is changing though, as some people are taking bold initiatives, such as the person at the origin of the SophiaAntipolis technopole who is now lobbying the European Union to take on debt to help develop Research in Europe. France are looking at other ways to set up taxes to help small businesses and a young generation of French students who are looking for rewards, for managerial responsibilites, who can actually speak English and who are not desirous to leave their roots and families to live abroad who starting to raise their voices. It will take time, perhaps another 10 or 20 years, it takes vision and dedication, but the country will NOT be able to sustain its current set up if it wants to continue grow. Its political system, an elite system of many people padding themselves on the shoulders and congratulating themselves with their lack of success but it is ok because it is not performance based, that's only for the private sector will come down crumbling if it does not reinvent itself and bring new blood in. Resistance to societal change will slowly mute into a listening ear before it can be turned into action. A country that has changed the face of Europe as it went through a revolution and sustained war on all its borders at the same time is able to take radical steps for its survival. When it becomes unbearable, when too much wealth gets destroyed or moved, it will move. Just as its own pace.

So, having said that, and bearing in mind that this story is told by someone who is very emotionally linked to this reality, thus bias, and is not representative of all businesses and all people, I invite you to read my account of it, which I have tried to keep as faithful as possible. Assuming that this story is true - I see no incentive for the man to lie about it in class - I will then give you my two cents about it, as I usually do.

It is about the role of the Unions in France. Our cute entrepreneur has successfully set up several pubs in France when an anarchist, revolutionary, bloody Union got through his doors via his three Sri Lankan chefs. According to the entrepreneur, their aim is not to better the lives of the workers they represent, but to tear down the whole system of private enterprise and evil management, to defeat a society that claims that it is all right to make money by exploiting the weakness of the poor workers and to overturn the government and to replace it by Marxist thinkers. It would not occur to them that companies can develop a person, provide training and a fulfilling set of rewards, as well as an income to the workers. The Union told the chefs that they could sign at the bottom of the French text, which they probably could not read, give them some money and that they would gain a 20% payrise in no time.
A few weeks later, the Union guys told the chefs that they could go on strike, that the first day nothing will happen, that the second day, there would be a meeting and the third day, they'll get their rise and be paid for the striking days, as it was the way things were done in France. Legally, people have to deliver a 3-day notice before a strike in which they state the reasons why they desire to go on strike but as we will see further down the line, this is not always easy to enforce.

First the Union asked me to do all sort of disruptive activities as a means to slowly sabotage the business. They would either not serve certain dishes, or cook something different from what was actually ordered, or cook the same dish for everyone, or forget to buy food and then use it as a pretext for not cooking, etc...

In the case that we are concerning ourselves with, they just decided to go on strike. They did not come to work and the pub missed a lunch service. Management just decided not to do it the French way. They organized another way to bring food in (ordered it) and the chefs could see food being served at dinner. Management decided to wait for workers to start negotiations but the poor chefs who were not sophisticated and went on strike apparently for no other reason than ask for more money did not have a clear negotiation agenda so did not come. After a few days, the chefs went to find employment elsewhere while being still officially on strike with the pub. This is of course illegal since a strike does not refute your obligations as an employee, but if you tried to bring it in front of a Court in France, they'd argue that the workers must be able to feed their family, that it would cost even more the State to help them out and that it was therefore better for them to have two jobs, just one in which they did not work for a while. The employer on the other hand, although under no obligation to pay a salary during the strike, cannot fire the workers on strike and it is difficult to hire somebody for a short undetermined period of time.
On the other hand a bunch of Union people, whom the pub management had never seen before, distributed tracts to encourage people to boycott the pub, to support the poor chefs, and made a lot of noise and threats to potential customers.

Management sue the chefs and thus indirectly the union (since they were employed elsewhere, in breech of contract, since they gave no notice and disrupted the business further than necessary by performing their tasks badly when not on strike, etc...). They judge of the Supreme Court found them to be right and condemned the chefs and the Union for misbehavior. Unfortunately, at that time, finding out that this was happening in many places, the Prime Minister and the Government had passed a recommendation throughout police offices to actually protect the workers, who formed a large part of the electorate. So MANAGEMENT WAS UNABLE TO HAVE THE LAW ENFORCED. Three Police commissaires (or police chiefs) told them that they felt sorry but just could not go to these people with the Court Order and have it enforced because of the recommendation they received from the government.

Now, let us examine this situation, with a cool distant perspective.

France separated the three powers: Justice, Legislative and Executive to avoid conflicts of interest. The Police depends on the Ministry of Interior, not the Ministry of Justice. Where does their loyalty lie? You tell me...In which countries can't laws be enforced which lead to seemingly arbitrary behavior? Dictatorships, of any form. Which negotiation technique lead to better results: collaborative or competitive, statistically? Is it good to see society as a constant battle between proletariat and executives? Are people born equal?

The system calls for everyone to be bought off, the chefs and the Union - a very corrupt way of dealing with labor problems in a developped country. I call this plain extortion. Strange for people who claim that money is not pure, noble and that no one should engage in a quest that might actually generate revenues.

On a much lighter note, and quite interestingly, the 36-hr SNCF strike coincided with the coming out of the sun and BBQ weather.